


Life of an Artist

by Depressed_Artist



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anxiety, Art, Painting, School Project, all nighters, artist, bored, unhealthy amounts of caffeine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-01 21:17:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14529360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Depressed_Artist/pseuds/Depressed_Artist





	Life of an Artist

I let a deep sigh pass through my lips, a feeling of accomplishment  
blooming in my chest that warmed my body up from it's naturally colder state. The paintbrushes in my hands were held in lax fingers and one slipped through before bouncing harmlessly off the carpet. I was staring in awe of the creation I had made, it took me 2 weeks, three all nighters, the rage of the pacific ring of fire and too much coffee to be healthy to finally get it perfect. People had fought me on what it should look like, saying that it didn't look right with it's purple skin and pitch black hair, saying that it was creepy with the exposed bone and teeth for a face. I ignored them all. It looked exactly how I wanted it too look. Creepy and not right. Anyone who said that wasn't looking at it with the right eyes.  
The 20” by 24” canvas had been sitting in the corner of my room for months, a half finished grid had been laid out on the tough, woven fabric from when my creative binge had spluttered out toward the end of another painting. I had been staring at the blank canvas for near four hours now, silently willing the artists block that had gripped me for a few weeks prior to lift up and release me from it's clutches. Wishing for the horrendous feeling to go terrorize another poor unwilling artist. The bundle of energy bounced around my body. Feeling the adrenaline through my veins. The want. The need to create something. To make something on my own and have it be a personification of me. Thinking dangerously, I suddenly leaped off the bed in a mad scramble for the paints I kept in a repurposed shoe cubby hanging on the back of my bedroom door. The idea of this Thing had taken hold and I would not stop until this idea was perfected into being.  
Yanking my pallet out from where I had hidden it accidentally after the semi realistic wolf painting, I began to fill it with dots of color that I would be needing for the new adventure I would be going on in my attempts to bring the idea onto canvas. The first all nighter was that night as I had just been gloriously relinquished from the holds of artists block and I was going to hold onto it with both hands and not stop until I dropped. Rock music blared in my ears through headphones as to not wake up the rest of my family, but I wasn't even paying attention to the music. Absentmindedly humming along to Motionless in White’s Loud, I started gathering different sized paint brushes out of a reused pasta sauce jar that I splatter painted black and white. Holding the seven gathered paint brushes in between tense, jittery fingers, I used my other hand to tie my hair back from my face in a very, very messy ponytail. I placed an acrylic flat headed brush in between my teeth, and a thinner wooden brush in my ponytail before setting the rest on the carpet in front of me.  
Grabbing a charcoal pencil from the reused pesto bottle that holds all of my drawing pencils, I finished the gridding and the sketch I had already had half drawn out quickly in my haste to get started. The teeth were the hardest to draw, they were hanging loosely from the upper and lower jaws as there were no more gum tissue to hold them in place, some were even missing, leaving gaping holes in between the rest of the teeth. It was a mildly traumatic sketch, the shaded eyes staring into your soul like they could see everything you've ever done and was judging you for it. I started on the background at about five in the morning, the birds were chirping in that mildly obnoxious, but still pleasing to the ear for some reason way that they could do. I paused for a break halfway through the traditional English turquoise and Indian turquoise blend of the background(yes those are two completely different colors). I set the coffee maker to start and it clunked to life, noisily chugging coffee steadily into the pot. The smell was intoxicatingly pungent to my work addled brain and I gulped down as much of the burning hot liquid as I could. It scalded my tongue, but I couldn't bring myself to care about it as I felt the caffeine slowly bring my fatigued body back to life.  
Feeling a little better about my productivity levels for the day, I returned to my room that was slowly becoming my creative lair with all the paintings and drawings taped or hung to the walls. I opened my blinds for the first time in nearly nine hours and my eyes happily embraced the softer natural light that gave them a reprieve from the harsher industrial lighting of my room overnight. I switched from my headphones to the radio and listened to the morning talk show on my regular station, nodding in time with the news being reported through the faceless voices in my room. I started on the hair, painting the strands a midnight black that I bought at meijer on sale for eighty nine cents. I left out the highlights, planning on coming back through with some white to clean up the smudged lead you could see in the clear sections surrounded by black.  
I worked quietly for the next couple hours as the radio switch seamlessly from talk show to the alternative hard rock I've grown to love over the years. Some songs played twice or even three times and I sung along quietly, my main attention on creating the thin, even lines of the nose. It was all bone, and halted awkwardly in a slanted angle that would have been rounded out if all the soft tissue and cartilage was there. My mother knocked lightly before pushing the door open a few inches and peeked her head around the thicker wood slab.  
“Have you been up all night?” She asked incredulously, her blonde eyebrows rising steadily like they too were confused by me up at 7 in the morning on a Saturday.  
I pulled my head up, turquoise paint smeared on one cheek and a paintbrush in between my lips as I gnawed on the acrylic end, “ ummm….yeah?” My fingers twitched with the extra energy of the coffee, but my attention was still focused on my disapproving mother.  
She frowned, still in her bathrobe as she usually was in attempts to get some things done before officially starting the day. “Well if you're up, feed Molly and put some hot water on, we're leaving for breakfast in an hour,” my mother grumbled not too unkindly then turned to go get in the shower.  
I murmured my agreement and slowly got up, my joints popping like fire crackers as they stretched out of the position they had been in for hours on end. Breakfast was the usual affair at the VFW, hanging out with the entire “clan” as one of the friendly waiters, Dan, liked to call us. I didn't work on the painting for the rest of the day, too tired out from moving the split wood from the wood pile to stacking it on my grandparents portico. I usually did this after breakfast every Saturday and it was habit now. It was backbreaking work, but hey, at least I'm getting paid. And the main reason being that it helps out my family for the winter with their wood burning fireplace, getting paid is just a big bonus. I slept soundly that night, tired from working on little sleep and and the caffeine crash.  
The next all nighter was a week later, a Friday night and as per usual my antisocial self was at home. I was doing a mix of watching movies and working on the painting. That was until I finished watching some good ‘ol Tim Burton and low and behold, I was inspired. Whipping out brushes that I would need and all of my purple paint, I got down to business. The lighting was the hardest thing about painting the skin, also figuring out your light sources and making sure they don't interfere with each other. Starting with the base coat of a medium royal purple, I then worked with the shadows to get more of a Byzantium purple around the shoulders and neckline. The lighter purples were more challenging, getting the lavender to blend with the thistle and the orchid to blend with the mauve. It's stressful to be an artist, with all the blending and the highlights and the negative space, but also balancing that with the active space and making sure you don't have too much of one and not enough of the other or the other way around. It's a lot to learn and keep track of, and the color theory is a whole other ballpark.  
I had finally gotten it to be at least semi acceptable and said screw it for now before continuing on to do the rest of the hair and face. It was mildly discombobulating to have the purple skin and then the stark whites of the bone show through. I had spent half the night on the skin and the other half on the face, only remembering to sleep until it was too late to actually go to bed. So for the second time that night I said screw it and went to go make some strong coffee. Trudging down the steps with my feet dragging behind me, it took conscious effort to not trip on the steps and get down the stairs a lot faster than I intended.  
The coffee tasted as amazing as all five am coffee tastes, like a blessing from the Ancient Roman goddess of caffeinated beverages. I'm decked in my paint splattered Star Wars t-shirt and bleach stained shorts, the usual for all us uncaring art majors on the weekends. Or maybe it's what everybody wears when you're not going to leave the house, minus the paint of course. I had swatches of color running down my arms, heavily visible on my pale pre-Bandcamp skin and dark circles under my eyes. The weight of my eyelids rivaled an elephant as I began to slow my chugging of the glorious nectar called coffee.  
I worked on the painting for a few hours everyday throughout the week, steadily getting the skin tones to look right, or as right as one can when you have purple skin. I had sent some pictures to friends, asking if there was anything that I could do to make it look any better or if they had any comments on it that they would like to share. The responses that I had gotten back were not the ones I had expected. My heart jumped to my throat and my lungs shuddered to a stop as I read what one of my close friends had written in reply to my painting. ‘what is that thing?’ I scowled at my phone screen, eyes watering in response to the emotional whip that had just struck my chest. Yes, I had called it that, but it still stung to hear it from someone else. At least I said it out of love and not disgust. I read on, morbidly interested in what else they had to say about the semi self portrait. ‘That's so creepy, nobody's going to want that anywhere near them, why did you even make it.’ It was then that the first tear fell, splashing into my cup with the soft sound of a diamond shattering. The rest fell faster now and I tried to wipe them away furiously, but they simply refilled my cheeks with the salt tracks of tiny pieces of a broken heart.  
The third all nighter was that night. I was filled to the brim with the fury of Pompeii and I used that hurt and that anger as fuel for the painting. I worked tirelessly for hours on end, Chris Motionless screaming in my ears in time with the tempo of my ferocity. My back was pressed into my bed frame uncomfortably, but I couldn't care less if it hurt, I was getting this painting done tonight or so help me. I lunged for paint tubes every few minutes and slowly a small pile grew by my left thigh, it shifted and some tumbled to the carpet when I moved. Paint flecked my face with each brushstroke and I greeted it warmly, dawning it like warpaint and I was going to battle.  
This continued well into the morning, my provisions of coffee sealed in travel mugs were running out and I had eaten the last of the granola bars I keep hoarded in my room for occasions just like this. I rolled back onto my heels, brushes in my hair and tangled in hyper fingers, just looking at the beautifully crafted monstrosity in absolute awe. I had done it. I had gotten it all perfect and I didn't give a crap if my friends didn't like it. I loved it, and that was all that mattered in that moment.


End file.
